Foreign journalists who participated in a tour organized by a Jewish settler group gather around Israeli Eliana Passentin, center, outside her house in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Eli, Monday, Nov. 17, 2008. The settlers said they were trying to show the world they're regular folks trying to live peaceful lives. But the bus' bulletproof windows, the ubiquitous barbed wire and the watch towers keeping guard over the settlers' homes betrayed an existence that is anything but normal. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Heaven forbid these settlers be granted the same unquestioning access to the news service that their Palestinian enemies have.

Comments:

i honestly don't see anything wrong with either story. the first one reports that mohammed al-helow was a militant and that he was killed as he and three other militants "were firing mortars at israel from the gaza strip on sunday." i believe all of that is actually true. so what's the problem?

as for the second story, there is something paradoxical about settlers who claim they just want to live "normal peaceful lives" but move to a place where the land is forceably seized from other people. and then, because those seizures prompt a violent response, the settlers are forced to live their lives behind bullet-proof glass. once again, i'd say that's an accurate description of the weird world that settlers have put themselves into.

so what exactly do you expect AP to do? not mention that the deceased was firing morter rounds in the first story? not mention the armored vehicles in the second? both of those things are rather important elements of the story, IMHO. you may not like the impression they create, but it's not like the impression isn't also accurate.